Showing posts with label zombies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label zombies. Show all posts

Friday, December 18, 2015

STUART R WEST

Stuart West agreed, a bit reluctantly, to submit to an interview. He recently used an old-fashioned grilling technique to get me to admit something very personal in an interview for his blog. If you're curious as to what secret I shared, please visit Stuart's Blog – Twisted Tales from Tornado Alley.

What I've learned is that Stuart is not only a master interrogator. His books are funny, irreverent, and yet brilliantly written. He has a deep understanding of teenage angst and portrays it with sensitivity. 



YR:   Stuart, thanks for the interview and for agreeing to make it reciprocal.

SRW: (Grousing…) I guess, Yolanda. Not like a had a choice in the matter…

YR:   Tell the readers about each of your books: Secret Society, Zombie Rapture, Tex, the Witch Boy, and Bad Day in a Banana Hammock.

SRW: Gotta couple of hours. I’ll try to be brief and painless…

Secret Society is a serial killer thriller with a dark vein of humor coursing through its unhealthy veins. It involves Leon, a serial killer who only targets abusers, going toe to toe with an evil, mysterious corporation that funds serial killers. Things don’t go well. It’s the first in a proposed trilogy. The second should be out early in 2016.




Zombie Rapture was my twist on the ol’ zombie tale. My protagonist, Hunter, has fallen in love with one of his high school classmates. Problem is, the world turns topsy-turvy. Most of the population has died and they think it’s the rapture on earth. Of course they want to “save” the few living by killing them. All Hunter wants to do is find Jordan, the love of his life, who’s now missing. Again, it’s a suspense thriller (not really a zombie book) with lots of humor and Buffy-like snark.




Tex, The Witch Boy is the first of a quartet of YA paranormal, murder mystery, comedy, suspense, romance, high school issues books. Whew. I think there’s a kitchen sink in there somewhere, too.







Finally, Bad Day in a BananaHammock is my first straight-up comedy. It’s a murder mystery (practically a cozy…sorta) about a vapid male stripper who wakes up with no memory of the preceding night, no clothes. And next to a dead man. He turns to his sister, an ex security specialist and eight months pregnant, for help in proving his innocence. And above all, to prove he’s heterosexual. Available now!




YR:   Where did you get your inspiration for Secret Society?

SRW:  By being bored out of my mind and sitting on the “husband bench” at a store waiting for my wife to wrap up her shopping. I started studying the rest of the bench’s male occupants and wondered…what if two of them were there to meet for nefarious purposes? The opening chapter introduces my protagonist and antagonist (two very different types of serial killers) meeting at the mall. The book took off from there.

YR:   You've written about murder, serial killers, zombies, and witches – and in each one, there's a bit of romance (well, sex).  How important is a romantic entanglement to the plot of your stories? BTW, I think you handled each scene brilliantly. Kudos Mr. Stuart.

SRW:          You’re putting me on the spot here, Yolanda! Okay, okay, I admit it…there’s a bit of romance in all of my books. What can I say? It’s universal, everyone’s experienced it. I believe it grounds my protagonists in situations that otherwise may not be all that relatable. To make a reader care about your characters (whether they be serial killers, witches, zombie hunters, what have you), they have to relate.

YR:   I have a tendency to take scenes from my own life to add the believability of my characters and the settings. Do you? Does writing what you know interfere or help while writing? Is research part of your writing process or do you just wing it?

SRW:  Whenever my wife and I are out, I listen in on conversations. I like to think of it as research. She calls it eavesdropping. Whatever. But yes, I do take parts of my life and lob them into my crazy plots. The Tex series is based in part on my high school experiences and my daughter’s. Except, of course, for the murders, witchcraft and ghosts. Oh! And you’ll be glad to know I’m not a serial killer.
But I do kind of wing my books. Once I get the characters laid out, they pretty much dictate where the story goes.

YR:   I enjoyed the Secret Society; it was totally irreverent and entertaining. Zombie Rapture was a unique take on the genre, and you definitely left it open for more books in the series, but Tex, The Witch Boy had a message about bullying and you've written a series around Tex. What about this series was important to you?

SRW: Every horrific bullying incident in Tex, the Witch Boy happened to either myself or a friend of mine from high school. I think it contains a very strong anti-bullying message and I wanted to relay that in a hopefully non-preachy and entertaining format. 

The second book, Tex and the Gangs of Suburbia is based on a true story that happened at my old alma mater several years back. It deals with suburban gangs and identity. Finally, the third book, Tex and the God Squad is “ripped from today’s headlines!” and the villains are a thinly disguised Westboro Baptist Church. Themes include homosexuality and religion. 

Finally, the last book, Elspeth, the Living Dead Girl, revolves around drugs and teen suicide. 

Whew. I know they don’t sound fun, but I really tried to make them so!

YR:   Your settings are all in Kansas, are you a Kansas native? Does writing about Kansas win you readers and recognition?

SRW: You write what you know. Sigh. Lifelong inhabitant of Kansas (at least I live in a KC metro suburb). Not that I wouldn’t mind leaving this dang state behind me in my rearview mirror some day! Somewhere warm, preferably. As far as Kansas based tales gaining me readers and recognition? Are you kidding me?

Most people are still stuck in “Toto” jokes! I actually went to college with a Venezuelan native who thought we still had cowboys and Indians running around blasting people. Pardnuh!

YR:   Zombie Rapture was an enjoyable story, and Hunter's Grandpa my favorite character, although Scout also made points for her bravery. I'm curious though, were you afraid you might piss off a few readers with all the 'rapture' talk? I mean being politically correct seems important today.

SRW: Yep, I loved the characters in Zombie Rapture, too. As far as being politically incorrect? I figured the book might tweak a few noses, but, hey! Controversy’s good! Besides, I think I was fair (as I am in Tex and the God Squad) to all beliefs. (Kinda.)

YR:   I enjoy each of your books but especially your novella Bad Day ina Banana Hammock. I particularly liked the very pregnant but badass Zora, my kind of gal. The story was funny, very believable. I also loved learning that this story came about because of a dare. I wrote my first zombie story based on a dare. Please dish.

SRW: Banana Hammock was something different for me; also the easiest thing I’ve written. I liked the results so much, I’m considering a series. Yes, it was written as a dare. I was kicking around stupid ideas with a writer friend of mine. I thought, “What if…what if my hero’s the stupidest hero ever? How about…a vain male stripper? And he wakes up next to a naked dead guy! And all he cares about is proving he’s not gay!” My friend said, “I dare you!” Like you, I couldn’t resist the dare.

Only thing was I soon realized the guy couldn’t carry the whole book alone.

Hence the birth of Zora, his gun-slinging, bad-ass, mega-pregnant sister. Who, by the way, is proving to be quite the early fan favorite!

YR:   Do you write for your pleasure or for the readers? Did you choose the genre or did it choose you?

SRW: I write the kind of books I’d like to read. If the readers join me, awesome! As far as genres, I’m all over the board. I intend on writing all of ‘em at some point. (Even have an idea for a romantic comedy…just don’t tell anyone.  Wait!...)

YR:   I see that you've published three books a year for the last three years, very impressive. You blog and I'm assuming, participate in social media. I know you hate the typical interview questions, but would you be willing to give us some insight into your writing habits. Share a few secrets; give us less prolific writers some words of inspiration.

SRW: First, I drink heavily. Then procrastinate. No, not really. I mean, the second part. Or wait…

Let me start over. There’s no secret, other than I’m committed. And it helps my wife let me retire early. Couldn’t handle the corporate world any longer. In return, I cook, clean, provide (ahem) arm candy. But I do force myself to write five days a week. Even if what I turn out is crap. But that’s what revisions are for. The hardest part for me, by the way, revisions. I can knock out a first draft in 1/3 the time it takes to revise.

YR:   What's next on your agenda, do you have any more stories coming out after a dare.

SRW: Up next on my agenda? Rule the world. After that? Keep writing. No more dares. But I have many projects lined up. Haven’t told anyone this yet, but I just contracted for a children’s picture book: Don’t Put Gum in the Fish-Bowl. 




Next year should see the release of Demon with a Comb-Over (a darkly comical horror tale about a stand-up comedian who heckles a very angry demon); a prequel tale about the demon’s history, The Book of Kobal; and a thriller entitled Dread and Breakfast (the less said about the plot twists, the better). Also, be on the look-out for the second Secret Society book and a sequel to Bad Day in a Banana Hammock.





Finally, I’ve recently released Ghosts of Gannaway, a sprawling decades-spanning historical ghost tale. This sucker was heavily researched and took forever…not doing that again!








Finally, I have two other thrillers out there, Neighborhood Watch and Godland.





Oh! I have an idea for a new YA series, too.

YR:   Okay, okay, you're a prolific writer. We got it! But this has been the longest interview to date, folks have to get back to watching funny animal videos! Still, Thank you, for taking time away from your writing to share with us. 

Well readers, take your pick, Stuart West has quite a library of books, and they're all entertaining, humorous, and skillfully written. 
I dare you.

LINKS:


Stuart R. West Twitter: @StuartRWest



Friday, October 16, 2015

ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN UNDERLAND

MY NEXT VICTIM THIS HALLOWEEN



Thanks, DeAnna, for agreeing to be part of the fun.

Without further ado presenting DeAnna's

Halloween Interview & Flash Fiction Challenge


1.      You're born on Halloween and have the ghostly evil super powers of one of the following: The Ghost from Poltergeist, The Frankenstein Monster, The Mummy, The most Evil of Witches, The Devil himself, Freddy Kruger, Pumpkin Head, Michael from Halloween, or Jason from Friday the 13th. Alternatively, if you prefer, pick one of your own. Otherwise, tell us which one you would choose and why? No friendly ghosts allowed! You're to wreak havoc in this scenario!

I have inherited the power of...The Most Evil of All Witches! I've always been fascinated by them. On the one hand, they were slaughtered for hundreds or even thousands of years...but on the other hand, I've always wondered why. Why witches--why not, say, midwives or prostitutes? I realize that a lot of the time, the women who were killed were women who had a) property worth taking, and b) few or no male relatives to protect them. But now that we've legalized pot in Colorado, I've also been pondering:  what if one of the reasons that "witches" were targeted was that they distributed not just medicines like arbortifacients, but recreational drugs? As well as the knowledge to find, harvest, preserve, and use them? It's just supposition on my part, but it would explain why you hear about them acting weird and having orgies with the devils. You hear stuff that's almost as bad about pot, let alone other types of illegal drugs. Witch burnings as a covert Mafia war between church-sanctioned and independent drug dealers. Why not? It might be fun...

2.      The Zombie Apocalypse is going to occur this Halloween and for 48 hours, the world is thrown into chaos. Live through it and consider yourself lucky, you've been warned. What is your first step, especially as no one else knows or believes you? Do you leave family behind and seek shelter to ride it out, or do you try to save your family? How and why?

Oh, my family would believe me.  We've had an agreement for years that if one of us gets bitten by a zombie, the others will take them down as quickly and painlessly as possible.  We don't have bug-out bags and kits set up, but it's on our to-do lists.  I'm thinking about making them for Christmas presents at some point [she said, hoping her family isn't reading this].  At our old house, we were planning to go up to a certain reservoir stocked with fish; now that we're in the middle of moving, I'm not sure where we'd go.  I'll have to ask.

3.      Because of the time of your birth, (see the 1st question) the angels have decided to forgive your sins and are offering to remedy one evil that now exists in the world, but only one! Which would you choose and why?

I'd like to tweak human nature just a leeeetle bit so that humanity can process the interconnection of more than five things at a time. See Robert J. Sawyer's Calculating God. In essence, humans may think we're smart, but we can't actually process the interconnections of more than five things at a time (which is 125 interconnections). The universe is far more complex than that, which leads to humanity failing to even understand how little it knows (and, I might add, how hypocritical we usually are). A planet with just a little less hypocrisy and a little more willingness to admit we're wrong? Super.

 4.      Why is Halloween a favorite holiday, or not a favorite, and if it isn't why did you participate in this query? Come on; tell us your biggest most secret Halloween fantasy!

FAVORITE. I've always liked it (I was one of those kids who always wanted to play dress up), but the reason it's a favorite is because of my daughter, who was born in October. Halloween has become a second birthday in which we set up a mini-haunted-house in the garage and pass out treats to anyone brave enough to run in and make a snatch-and-grab. We've done Frankenstein, hillbilly zombies, pirates, and other things. It's a ton of fun. This year, because we're in the middle of moving, we're going to do a normal trick-or-treat pass. Siiiiigh. Next year.

      Now the fun part: Finish the story. I've given you the first 100 words. Provide us with the rest, but please hold the number to 750 words or less. The winner will receive a $10 Amazon gift card. The contest will be judged by another lover of the horror genre, the person to be announced later. The winner will be posted no later than a week after Halloween!

DESPERATION HOLLER

Jerry sauntered along Desperation Holler Road that earlier echoed with the excited shouts of ghosts and ghouls as the children scrambled from house to house in colorful and frightening costumes.
Dusk dissolved into the blackest of nights as the little monsters disappeared into the shelter of the brightly lit houses with their chocolate goodies.
Jerry smiled, even suppressed laughter, because he knew there was no refuge, not in Desperation Holler on this most evil of Halloweens.
Concealed by the dark limbs of deformed trees and invasive ivy, the innocuous little cabin looked abandoned, but Jerry knew better. 
The witches abode . . .

All he had to do was get inside, find the trap door to the cellar (it was supposed to be in one of the bedrooms, although that homeless slut he’d caught had claimed not to know which room it was in), and climb down an old wooden ladder.
The chest would be the only thing left in the cellar: the glass jars full of dead babies and demons' blood had already been taken out by the group of teenagers who had found the trap door last week, and Jerry had already found their hiding spot after he had caught Mary digging through his trash three days ago. He had been so elated that he had put a quick end to the girl and her other little homeless friends. There was fun and then there was what he'd been sent here to do, and now he was all out of time for fun.
He must have gone past that place a hundred times and not even suspected.
He whistled as he swung his keyring around the tip of his finger.
He did a little jig as he jumped onto the front stoop and selected the key with the grinning skull at the end. The key slid into the door lock and opened it smoothly. He danced inside and closed the door, closing the rotting curtains with a flourish.
He laughed when he saw the cross-stitched embroidery on the wall: BLESSINGS ON THIS HOUSE and a cabin with smoke coming out of the chimney, flower pots on the stoop, and an embroidery spiderweb stretched between chimney and roof. The cabin was a little old ladies' home, all armchairs and doilies and delicate end tables simply begging for a cup and saucer. Spiderwebs covered the furniture like drop cloths, torn in places where the teenagers had stopped to playact a tea party in the witches' chairs, pinkies sticking out as they spoke in clumsy accents.
He skipped into the back hallway, jiggling door handles as he went. Broken windows, leaves, sticks, and animal nests. Footprints on bare floors, rotting quilts on beds, the old gray tinsel of fat cobs long dead. The place was so old it had no indoor bathrooms. There'd be an outhouse somewhere in the back, so long unused that it would smell almost sweet. Maybe it would still have an almanac or catalog by the door.
The last room, then. He flung open the door. The bed had been tossed to the wall and the trap door flung open. A narrow old ladder peeked out from under the floorboards.
Jerry picked another key from the ring, this one marked with a candle held by a severed hand. He knelt at the edge of the trap door and turned the key in the darkness.
A faint green glow appeared in the cellar: all clear. Yet who knew better than he to trust witches! He ignored the ladder and jumped down, landing as cleverly and quietly as a cat hunting a mouse.
The shelves were bare of all but circles in the dust. The cellar ran the length of the house; if the dust spots on the shelves were any indication, the homeless shits had another cache of jars somewhere. When he was done tonight he’d have to go looking for them.
And use them all up, before they went bad. He grinned.
An old, iron-bound chest waited coquettishly for him at the other end of the cellar. Splashes of old mud covered the bottom of the chest; it was heavy, sinking down into the floor. Around it lay scraps of old carpet and straw mats, marked with small, muddy footprints.
He sang a little ditty about something something pretty, something something pity and didn’t even mind that he’d forgotten most of the words, and couldn’t remember whether the singer had used a fish knife or a surgeon’s scalpel on the women as he’d killed them.
The skeleton key flashed in his hand as he pushed it into the lock and turned it.
The top of the chest popped open like a jack in the box. Jerry hopped backward, and the small claws missed him.
He cooed, he tickled, he scooped it up with a tattered old piece of rag rug from the floor so it wouldn’t scratch him, he closed the lid.
And then he turned around just as the eerie green thieves' light went out.
He tucked the bundle under his arm and pulled out a third key, this one marked with the handle of a knife, and held it before him.
The trap door at the other end of the cellar slammed shut. The squirming, sacred bundle fell apart in his arms, scattering into fragments of old mud onto the floor.
Jerry cursed, an old curse that was supposed to be good against witches. He’d suddenly remembered something bad, very bad.
There hadn’t been any spiderwebs in the cellar.

Behind him, the chest lid creaked.
****
Thanks so much DeAnna, That was thrilling!
DeAnna says she would happily give away an ebook to one lucky commenter!  Your choice of A MURDER OF CROWS (short horror stories), ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN UNDERLAND (zombies), and TALES TOLD UNDER THE COVERS (middle-grade genre stories).  


Alice's Adventures in Underland: The Queen of Stilled Hearts
by DeAnna Knippling

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Alice Pleasance Liddell whose father ran Christ Church College at Oxford University. One of Dean Liddell’s friends was a man named Charles Dodgson, a lecturer in mathematics and amateur photographer who would eventually become known as Lewis Carroll.

Once upon a time, an outbreak of a virulent disease known as zombieism spread across Great Britain. What made it so deadly was that it had two phases—the earlier phase infected the victim’s bloodstream, making them infectious but not necessarily mad; the latter phase occurred upon death, when the victim was prevented from joining the souls in the afterlife and condemned to remain upon the Earth—which had the understandable effect of enraging them to the point of infecting every human in sight.

At first, the undead were considered to be lost to both Heaven and Earth, and regularly burnt to cinders in large pits throughout the countryside; then, the Italian Filippo Pacini developed a serum that, if ingested early enough and regularly thereafter, allowed the undead to fight off the worst effects of the infection. The Infected and the undead were treated with serum on a regular basis, and society returned to normal—except for a few curious customs regarding the undead, including the requirement to be shackled at all times, for the safety of the living.

A curious fact of the times was that zombies, being dead, were seen to have few legal rights. They were unable to enter into legal contracts or own property—even themselves. A zombie without a de facto owner was a dead zombie—collected by the Government and humanely destroyed.

Protected zombies were often employed as servants. They were certainly not slaves.

Once upon a time, Mrs. Liddell wanted a picture taken of her three daughters by the most fashionable photographer in Oxford…even if he was a zombie.

Buy HERE!

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DeAnna Knippling lives in Colorado with her family and probably spends too much time thinking about ways to hypothetically scare her friends with horror stories. 

 Everyone, no matter how jaded, has something that gets under their skin, is her theory.  Her latest book is Alice's Adventures in Underland: The Queen of Stilled Hearts, a zombie tale about the real Alice from Alice in Wonderland.  You can find out more about her at www.WonderlandPress.com.



Connect with DeAnna here:
dknippling@gmail.com
@dknippling

Her new collection of short horror stories, A MURDER OF CROWS, is out now! You can get a copy here


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It's only the 16th - plenty of time to enter the
Youthful Frights vs. Adult Fears
Come on, I dare you!





Friday, July 10, 2015

DETOUR

PHOTO PROMPT © Stephen Baum


DETOUR

We'd been crawling for hours, the light ahead our only guide. I concentrated, imagining the cold beer, soft bed, and workshops.

The scarf wrapped tightly around my nose and mouth did little to filter the smell of blood, shit, or the decaying stench of wasting bodies.

Despite our efforts to carefully crawl over the dead below us. My gloveless hand always found that raw open wound, eye socket, or unidentifiable collection of tissue and fluids that would make my stomach lurch in revolt.

Zombie apocalypse my ass, the road to the 2016 World Horror Convention took a death defying detour!

100 words
Yolanda Renee © 2015

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My inspiration besides the picture is the


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